David versus Whitmore
by Rain in the Morning
Summary: David suspects his wife Connie of having an affair with her boss, Thomas Whitmore. When a startling bit of evidence arises, he decides to confront his rival, and... you know the rest!


_A/N: I watched "Independence Day" for the first time in a while, and really enjoyed Jeff Goldblum's performance. His character mentions that in the past he punched the President – except he wasn't the President then, of course. I latched onto the idea and ran with it. Enjoy!_

**David versus Whitmore**

David Levinson pedalled down the street furiously, paying no heed to his surroundings. Exactly twenty-three minutes ago, he had found something startling.

It had begun as a normal morning. He had woken up to find Connie gone, something which had been happening with disturbing frequency recently. Of course, she was working on the campaign, something which David could almost understand.

He had put on his bathrobe and slippers, watered his plants, and poured himself some coffee. All completely normal. Then he had decided to do a bit of laundry. But when it came time to put his clothes in the dryer, he had found it already occupied… by a pair of boxer shorts… and they weren't his.

At first he had stared at them, wondering if perhaps Connie had put them there for a joke in a rare bout of high humour. Or maybe they were a very early Christmas present that she had picked up. He looked at the silken pair of underwear, and that posh, shimmering, glitzy material made him think of one person: Thomas J. Whitmore.

Whitmore, that greasy, suave politician who had been taking up so much of Connie's time lately. This discovery only confirmed a suspicion that had been slowly growing in the back of his mind. It took David only a matter of minutes to throw on some clothes and grab his bicycle.

He found Whitmore's New York campaign office with surprising ease, as if an internal magnet was dragging him towards the source of his disquiet. The sight of those smirking posters made him grit his teeth reflexively as he leaned his bicycle against a tree.

He pushed open the door and strode into mayhem. His already-numb brain was appalled at the mountains of paper on every available surface and he felt momentarily dizzy at evidence of such a colossal waste. Fax machines, printers, paper shredders – this was no campaigning office, this was systematic homicide. His eyes swept through the chattering mayhem, and instantly focussed on a familiar figure. There she was, looking trim as ever in her pencil skirt and blouse. She was walking rapidly through the melee, finding her way between people and desks with surprising dexterity, considering that her gaze was fixed on her clipboard.

David stepped to the side and attempted to blend into the wall, watching as she made her way to the corner and into an office. David strolled over, nodded and smiling vaguely at anyone who happened to look his way, and leaned casually against a photocopier. Through the glass walls of the office, he could see his wife. There were a few other people in there not worth his notice, but his gaze instantly latched onto a certain suit. The man's back was turned, but there was no mistaking him.

Whitmore.

David felt heat rising to his face as he watched the other man. That slick bastard had the nerve to come over to _his_ house and sleep with _his_ wife. Of course, he had suspected that something like this was happening, especially since Connie followed that supercilious paper-waster across the country on his campaign while David stayed in New York. When they had finally come here, David rejoiced to be able to see his wife again, but apparently her time alone with that scumbag Whitmore had provided her with a more… attractive alternative.

David had always been self-conscious of his gangly and somewhat odd appearance. Throughout his marriage he had wondered how someone like him had managed to get a woman as beautiful and intelligent as Connie. It was something that bugged him considerably, and had caused him to become paranoid every time an even slightly decent-looking man glanced at his wife on the street. And here she was, travelling around the country with an admittedly far more attractive, powerful, and ambitious man than himself. Whitmore seemed to be everything that Connie wished David could be. Of course, she had never said anything about his looks, but his lack of ambition had always been a favourite arguing point between them.

And here she was in the office of that sleazy politician. He could see Whitmore's face now quite clearly. He had met the man once before, but that time Whitmore could only spare him a handshake and a brief "hello", barely glancing at his face. Not very polite at all, really. Now the man was talking to Connie, and David clenched his fists. Whitmore had that infuriating little smile on his face, and Connie threw back her head and laughed.

That was it. The thought that they were laughing together, and probably about him, drove David over the edge. We walked over to the office, flung open the door, and marched inside.

Connie looked over her shoulder, and her expression turned to one of shock. "David!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing–?"

David ignored her and made a beeline for Whitmore. Without preamble, he drew back his fist and smashed it as hard as he could against the side of the man's head.

Whitmore staggered.

Mayhem erupted.

"_David!_" Connie shrieked, grabbing his arm as he swung it back for another shot. "What do you think you're _doing_?"

He shook her off and charged again, but Whitmore swung around and deftly ducked his second punch, landing a solid one in David's gut.

By this time everyone in the office was shouting, and by the sound of it some people outside the office had started to notice as well. David flung himself at Whitmore and they crashed into the desk, sending flurries of paper into the air. David could hardly see anything through the mass of white, but concentrating on pummelling every inch of Whitmore that he could see, something that was rather hard considering that the other man was a better fighter than he was.

Whitmore flung him into a wall, but David merely pushed himself off again, using the momentum to drive the other man against a filing cabinet. He picked up the first thing that he could grab, and raised it high to smash in the politician's face. He paused when he realized that it was a potted plant. Whitmore took advantage of the pause to shove David away, and the gangly man tripped over his own feet. He flailed as he fell, and managed to grab the lapels of Whitmore's suit. They both went down in a spectacular tangle of limbs and flying sheets of paper. The potted plant crashed to the ground, littering them with soil.

They were still wrestling around on the ground when they were finally hauled apart by at least seven people.

David's glasses were dangling off one ear, but even with his blurred vision he could see a bruise growing on the side of Whitmore's face. The sight gave him a feeling of perverse pleasure. Let him go campaigning with a face like that and see how many people voted for him!

His feelings of satisfaction were abruptly shattered.

"David you _idiot!_" Connie was shrieking like a banshee. "What the hell are you _doing_ here?"

"Don't – don't give me that!" David shouted back, adjusting his glasses with fumbling fingers. "I _know_ you've been sleeping with him!"

"_What!_" Connie and Whitmore shouted together.

The other man turned to David's wife. "Connie, who is this?" he demanded, glaring across the room at David.

She drew a hand across her face. "David is my husband." An expression of comprehension spread over Whitmore's face. Connie continued, "I'm so sorry about this, Tom."

"That's right, I'm her husband, and – Tom? _Tom?_ Since when were you two on a first-name basis here?" David spluttered.

"Since I started working for him _eight months ago_," snapped Connie.

For a while they stood still and fumed. The people who weren't involved in the argument fidgeted awkwardly, occasionally shooting scandalized looks at David. The whole campaign office had come to a standstill, paper shredders and all. Whitmore glanced around, and turned to Connie. "Maybe you better settle this somewhere else," he said in an undertone.

David rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be steered forcibly out of the building by his wife. He grabbed his bicycle and walked along beside Connie, trying not to sulk.

"Okay," said Connie, letting out a breath. "Tell me what you thought you were doing."

"He's been sleeping with you!" David exploded, causing several pedestrians to stare.

Connie groaned and pulled him further along the sidewalk. "Tom and I are not _sleeping_ together," she hissed. "He's married, David! Our relationship is strictly professional."

"Oh yeah?" David asked, fumbling inside his jacket. "Then how come I found these in the dryer?" He flourished the incriminating pair of silk boxers in triumph.

"Oh my God," Connie muttered, shaking her head. "You can't be serious…"

"What? _What?_" demanded David. "You don't think something like this should be setting off some major alarms in a husband's mind? Huh? Hmm?"

Connie sighed heavily, and placed her hands on her hips. "Only _you_ would take something trivial like this, and then walk into a room to try to punch out someone you don't even know, without _talking to me first_! Where did our trust go, David?"

"I'll tell you. It packed up its bags and left when you started working for that pretty-boy Whitmore." To emphasize his point he waved the boxer shorts. "And his silk underwear!"

Connie grabbed the shorts from him and showed him the label. Embroidered on the tag were the initials 'R.S.' "They belong to my cousin Richard," she spat. "While you were out last weekend at that tree convention thing, he dropped by. I told you he was coming to visit, weren't you listening? He must have left these behind when he did his laundry."

David stared at the label, unable to come up with an effective comeback. "It wasn't a tree convention," he finally grumbled. "It was 'Friends of the Parklands', and if you want to know, a representative of Barry Evans was there as guest speaker." Connie's eyes flashed, and David wondered if it was a good idea to flaunt his support for Whitmore's prime opponent in the presidential election.

"All right, all right," she said, waving her hands in dismissal. "You be irrational and childish if you want to, but you will never go near that campaign office again. You could have really messed this up for me, David! You're lucky that Tom didn't press charges for assault!"

David slouched moodily. His next word took a massive effort, and he was left drained after saying it: "Sorry."

She shook her head silently, and turned to head back to the office, heels clicking on the sidewalk. David stared after her, regret mingling with petulance. With a final glance back at his wife, he hopped onto his bike and pedalled away down the street.

_A/N: If you took the time to read, I'd love to hear from you. What'd you think?_


End file.
